


February.

by NightFeather



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 11:05:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3325196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightFeather/pseuds/NightFeather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was managing. At least, that’s what she’d told her sisters the past few times they’d called. And it wasn’t a lie necessarily, she was managing, she just wasn’t managing well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	February.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Always A Day Away](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2857439) by [bringyouhometoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bringyouhometoo/pseuds/bringyouhometoo). 



> Lyida fic, not quite happy with it but thought I would post it anyway. May edit later. I've been feeling really close to Lydia lately and felt her voice needed to be heard this month. Revised due to inspiration from rosefan42's fic, Always a Day Away.

She was managing. At least, that’s what she’d told her sisters the past few times they’d called. And it wasn’t a lie necessarily, she was managing, she just wasn’t managing well.  
It wasn’t an all-the-time thing, at least not anymore. For months, nearly a year after it happened, it was. She’d been so fragile and shaken up for a long time that it was a while before glimpses of her old self began to shine through the fissures he’d created. Slowly, she’d become her old self again and it was only every once in a while that she’d crawl back into hiding, scared away by February’s shadow.  
It was that dreaded month again, having waited patiently all year to return with its 28-sometimes 29- days. It was never a problem before the incident. But now it’s been nearly two years and the month still rattles her bones.  
She was staying with Lizzie for a week; well she should say Lizzie and Darcy. Lizzie had finally cut her lease after six months of barely using her own apartment and had moved the remainder of her things into Darcy’s place.   
Lizzie picked her up at the airport on a gloomy Monday afternoon. She was standing there, backpack on, and suitcase in hand waiting. Her fiery red hair had lost its luster and was pulled up into a ponytail with pieces hanging out. She looked tired, really tired, the kind of tired she hadn’t seen since then. Lizzie got out of her car and before anything wrapped her baby sister in a hug. She pretended to be confused as to why her sister was hugging her so tight so as to not imply that she was in any way struggling. She was simply here to spend the week with her sister. Not because it was the week of Valentine’s Day, not so she could spend that evening vegging out with Gigi while Lizzie and Darcy got all lovey dovey at some restaurant. Not at all because she wasn’t sure she could handle that one night on her own again.   
“How are you, Lydia?” Lizzie asked her. She plastered her best fake smile on her face and assured her sister that she was fine. Well, even.   
Lizzie’s face faltered for a moment before she perked up again and reached for her suitcase to put into her tiny trunk.  
They drove in silence to her and Darcy’s place. Darcy greeted them at the door and she swore she saw his face falter too at her appearance no matter how hard she tried to look awake and happy.   
That night she swore again that she could hear Lizzie and Darcy whisper-arguing over how she was doing. She could hear Lizzie’s concerned tone and Darcy consoling her older sister. After a while she couldn’t take it anymore and instead placed her earbuds in her ears and pulled a pillow around her head to block out the noise, attempting to fall asleep to the mix he made for her.

 

A few days later it was Valentines Day. That evening she put on makeup, concealing her under eye circles as best she could. She applied some blush and mascara to brighten up her cheeks and open her eyes in hopes of making her look more awake. She brushed out her hair before pulling it into a tight French braid, much like the ones her and her sisters used to do on each other.  
She stepped out of the guestroom just as Lizzie and Darcy were putting their coats on, preparing to leave for their date.  
“So you’re going to call Gigi?” Darcy asked, helping Lizzie with her coat.  
She nodded, “I’ll call her as soon as you guys leave. Don’t worry about me.”  
Her sister looked concerned but let it go, “Call if you need anything, okay Lydia?” She told her. Darcy nodded in agreement.  
“I will” She assured them, before shooing them out the door.   
She called Gigi but got her voicemail instead. She swore she’d texted her a couple of weeks earlier asking about that night. She tried texting her but after fifteen minutes of no response she figured it was hopeless. She was going to be alone that night.

 

She tried everything to distract herself. Grey’s on in the background, a cup of hot chocolate on the table in front of her, Darcy’s practically unused acoustic guitar on the couch next to her with a tab open on her computer titled “Guitar for Absolute Beginners”. Nothing seemed to work.   
It was getting late and she was getting sleepy. But the sound of her thoughts were getting tiring, she kept hearing his voice asking her if she loved him, hearing herself try to convince the both of them that she truly did. The words echoed around her head, bouncing back and forth like a game of table tennis. Except the table was never-ending, the ball never stopping.   
Around 1 A.M. Darcy and Lizzie found her curled up on the couch in the smallest ball possible, arms wrapped around herself as if trying to hold her bones together.  
Darcy scooped her up, claiming she felt alarmingly light, and carried her to the guestroom. She woke up the next day, cheeks stiff with dried tears. She’d gotten through it, she reminded herself all throughout the day. She’d gotten through it.

 

When it was time for her to go back to her own place down in Los Angeles, her sister took her aside and, without trying to sound confrontational, confronted her. She tried her best to stay straight-faced but each time his name was mentioned it was like a punch to the gut. The last time she said it, she felt as if the wind was knocked out of her and she gasped for breath.  
“Lydia?” Her sister asked and she began hyperventilating.   
“I,” She gasped, “I can’t get him out of my brain”. It’s like a never-ending tug of war, I just want my life back and he, wherever he is, he won’t let me have it.”  
“Oh, Lydia” Lizzie whispered, wrapping her sister in the biggest hug she could for fear that her baby sister would fall apart. She sobbed silently, tears flowing freely down her cheeks and onto her collarbones where the stupid gemstone necklace that he got her still rested. 

 

She agreed to talk to someone. It helped, in fact, it helped a lot. She realized that she had been holding in more than she had known. She learned to recognize the warning signs of an emotionally abusive relationship and how her relationship with him had tortured and warped her. She moved out of the apartment she was living in and into one closer to her sister and further away from the town he lived in.  
A year later she was doing well. She wasn’t just managing, she was living. She didn’t have to worry about Valentine’s Day because she had plans with her couch, Grey’s anatomy, and her cat. She knew she’d be fine, and that her sister and Darcy or Jane were just a phone call away. Most of all she no longer felt the heavy weight of the tiny necklace that used to rest between her collarbones. It was long gone and replaced by the security of the new life she was living as her new self. She was okay without him.


End file.
